A new live chat support study by SuperOffice reports that 21% of businesses don’t respond to live chat requests. In addition, with increasing chat volumes each year, customers are often confronted with unresponsive customer support agents and long wait times.
Asynchronous video enables customers and companies to interact in their own time with no need to be online at the same time. Visual communication tools prioritize customer convenience and help you to stay connected with your customers 24/7.
What’s the Difference Between Asynchronous and Synchronous Videos?
Synchronous videos occur in real-time and require your team members to be present. You and your team are often in sync during Zoom meetings, for example. You convey information to your listeners and receive feedback instantly.
On the other hand, asynchronous video is where the conversation isn’t live-streamed. The communication doesn’t take place in real-time. You make a screen recording or video screencast, then send it to your team members for them to watch at their convenience.
Asynchronous video, also referred to as video messages, video voicemail, or recorded video, combines the primary benefits of video calls with the best aspects of live chat and email. They’re friendly, engaging, and human while also efficient, timely, and easy to consume at your own schedule.
If any of the following scenarios sound familiar to you, adopting asynchronous video may be the solution for your business:
- Feeling exhausted after a day or week of back-and-forth video calls?
- Tired of writing long-winded emails to explain a concept or idea?
- Struggling to schedule virtual meetings in a time frame that works for everyone in your team?
- Dealing with overstuffed or complex schedules because of family responsibilities or other duties?
- Is your day constantly disrupted by emails, virtual meetings, chat messages, and other notifications?
- is it hard to discern the tone in customers’ emails or chat messages?
How Can Businesses Benefit From Using Asynchronous Video in Customer Support?
Asynchronous video is a revolutionary visual communication and collaboration tool. It can cut down meetings, instant messaging, and emails, saving you time without sacrificing connection or communication.
1. Learning On the Customer’s Own Time
Customers have the freedom to raise their concerns and ask questions at their own pace, with no need to start the conversation over every single time.
Asynchronous video allows your customers to get into great detail about their issues and know that your customer support agents will reach out to them soon. Further, having open-ended communication is a significant benefit of asynchronous video. It gives your customers the control to receive customer support whenever it’s convenient for them.
2. Clarity and Repetition
Both customer support agents and customers can use asynchronous video to get to the root of the problems. In addition, customer support representatives can send similar video-narrated walkthroughs on fixing the issues.
Both customers and customer support staff can also benefit by sharing clearer explanations of what’s going on. If, for instance, you’ve tried to solve a software problem through a live chat window with customer support, then you understand the immense value this brings. Introducing a human touch via asynchronous video eases the frustration and puts a face behind your brand.
Asynchronous video can quickly deliver clear messages, and you and your customer support team can efficiently and promptly include supporting visuals to help get your message across. In addition, asynchronous video offers the chance to include facial expressions, body language, and tone so your customers can easily understand.
Since asynchronous videos don’t happen in real-time, it’s easier to document customer interactions. Every pre-recorded video should be safely stored in the customer service software of your choice. And because the details of past customer interactions are always at hand, your customers need not repeat information to customer support agents—a task that can quickly become tiresome.
3. Increases Customer Support Staff Time
Asynchronous videos can replace high-touch mediums, such as emails and phone calls that take up unnecessary customer support staff bandwidth. Phone calls are a perfect example of synchronous messaging, where one customer support rep deals with one customer at a time. Switching your synchronous communication with asynchronous video can immensely cut down the time spent on each customer, reducing the workload on each customer support agent while making your team more efficient.
4. Reduce Unanswered Customer Support Queries
Jay Nathan notes, “CSMs, Account Managers, and other customer-facing folks need programmatic support to make their work easier AND make customers feel like they are part of something bigger.”
With synchronous videos, when your customer support tickets increase, your customer support team strains to provide real-time support to one customer at a time, which may cause longer wait times, chat drop-offs, and missed chats. Instead, with asynchronous video, your customer support agents can interact with multiple customers at a go, reducing customer support response times and improving customer satisfaction rates.
Leverage Zight (formerly CloudApp) to Provide Asynchronous Support
Zight (formerly CloudApp) is a powerful visual communication software that combines intuitive webcam and screen recording, image annotation features, and GIF creation into one solid package. To offer asynchronous support for your customers, your customer support team can use Zight (formerly CloudApp) in a variety of ways, including:
- Send customized help messages: With Zight (formerly CloudApp)’s webcam recording features, your customer support agents can reply to chat queries and emails using personalized video messages. This type of communication is beneficial for customer support teams because it’s more efficient to speak what’s on your mind than writing lengthy explanations. In addition, for customers, an asynchronous video message is much more personal than emails.
- Annotate images and screenshots for optimal clarity: Visual communications, such as screenshots and screen snippets, make customer service processes efficient by improving clarity. For example, instead of typing out a lengthy email that’s likely to cause miscommunication on complex issues, take screenshots and annotate them with text boxes, circles, arrows, and emojis. Then send that content to your clients, and they can watch the content at their own convenience to get their issues resolved much quicker.
- Capture complex process footage: Often, asynchronous videos aren’t ideal when trying to solve complicated issues. But, by using Zight (formerly CloudApp)’s screen recorder feature, you can show your clients how to complete complex workflows and processes. You just need to turn Zight (formerly CloudApp) on, complete the complex workflow or process, and then send the recording to your customers, and they can watch it at their own time.
Visit Zight (formerly CloudApp)’s customer support page today to learn how to leverage the software to close your customer support tickets three times faster.